saying something
I thought I would say something about the blog title.. a very northern Irish saying. I found an article in Sociological Research Online with this same title which asserts:
"When strangers in Northern Ireland meet, they draw upon a variety of cues in an attempt to ascertain each other’s religio-political identity and, depending on the outcome, enter into what Burton (1978) terms ’systematically distorted’ or ‘pseudo-communication’. "
This brought a smile to my face, although I haven’t lived in N Ireland for a long time (23 years to be exact)….. all the little cues you looked for in what someone said that would be a dead giveaway as to whether they were Prod or Catholic (ok - what their religio-political identity was). And the questions you politely asked if you couldn’t work it out in the first minute or two of conversation. And then the pseudo-communication - oh yes indeed!! I guess (and I’m very happy to be corrected) that the phrase ‘Whatever you say, say nothing’ is advice to heavily edit what you say unless you know who you are saying it to lest you inadvertantly let slip something that might get you into deep you-know-what.
This made me think about writing a blog and how it’s easy to imagine at first who might be reading it (no-one? your friends? your family?? your preceptor???) and therefore to suddenly find yourself editing the content when you realise that actually all of them could be (although probably none is….). I suddenly started to realise why so many blogs are anonymous!! It would be really great to just pour out all those inner thoughts without a care in the world who was going to read them, but it’s just too scary for me, I am a embarrassed to admit. Work in progress. There’s a lot more that could be said here in terms of this sort of self-censorship - is it valid or even interesting to write this sort of thing if some of what is going on is edited out? Is it meaningful communication at all? What does it mean to me to be typing this at this very moment? Answers on a postcard please. Perhaps I will check out Sociological Research again…
